CHILDHOOD HALLOWEEN

I thought it would be fun for me to relate my childhood Halloweens. Living fairly isolated in the country was not conducive for going door to door tricker-treating. So this is an account of how my Halloweens played out.

My first remembrances of Halloween was when I was in elementary school. The school was approximately a mile from where I lived on the old farm. I walked to and from school most days unless the weather was so foul and I needed to be driven. So I knew the country road well as well as all the neighbors of which there were about eight or so on that mile trek.

On Halloween Mother let me have a girlfriend stay over and we would walk that road as far as the school tricker-treating. My parents felt it was safe enough you have to remember this was the fifties.
So with flashlights and self decorated bags for treats and adorned in our homemade costumes we started out.

Now most folks in the "olden days' gave you a treat for your bag as well as inviting you in for a goodie or two. Usually this consisted of home made doughnuts warm just out of the pot, apple cider, popcorn balls, well you get the idea. It was fun for the folks and fun for us. No matter what costume I wore they knew who I was and would ask about my parents etc making small talk. Then on we'd trudge to the next place a ways down the road.

The best place was the Bardell's. They really went all out for Halloween. It was the scariest place but that is what made it memorable. Sheet ghost hung from the trees in the yard, skeletons stuck on sticks lined the pathway like sentry's and sitting on the porch in a rocker was a wicked witch. There were also tombstones made from piled rocks scattered about the yard and lots of spiders hanging everywhere. But what scared us the most was the music, you could hear it coming down the road before you even saw the house. It was eerie and you would hear screaming and the cackle of a witch and owls screeching. Oh it was so frightening. I recall being so afraid to walk up those steps to the door with that black witch sitting there. But with shaking hands and beating hearts we would knock on the door and it would open and all would be OK after all. Happy faces welcomed us. Sometimes they had small sandwiches and always apple cider doughnuts and homemade root beer. Then also lots of candy for our bags and I mean regular size candy bars or homemade fudge! We also got to bob for apples from a big washtub sitting right in the middle of their kitchen.It was a splendid place.
We would spend a great deal of time at the Bardell's.
When we had finally stopped at all the houses along the way to the school we would turn around and go as fast as our legs could carry us back to my house. As we ran by houses their windows like yellow eyes, past cougar gulch (we were sure many cougar's lived there)back past the Bardell's scary music and up the hill to my house we would be out of breath. We'd tear through the door screaming and giggling like wild heathens.
As I got older the scenario stayed the same only the characters changed from year to year. Tween and early teen years we walked the road as groups of boys and girls. The boys were more into making mischief and the girls into looking cute in their costumes. I still enjoyed it all but there was a difference, boys chasing girls pretending to steal their candy when they probably wanted to hold hands or get a quick kiss. I was growing up and things would change.

Well they did as I went into high school there was usually a party somewhere or a dance to go to or something more grown up. So the days of the Bardell's and others along the road I had to give up to a younger group of kids. But I am thankful for that old road and those folks that lived along it that made that time in my life so memorable.
With fun memories still rolling through my head I will close this blog, hmm I am in the mood now for an apple cider doughnut.